


Dusk

by inamorata_jones



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorata_jones/pseuds/inamorata_jones
Summary: Post-6x19. What happens after Elizabeth tracks Red to Hong Kong.Spoilers for "Rassvet." Lizzington if you've got those glasses on.





	Dusk

Anger is easier than admitting his hurt, his _bewilderment_ —he had _forgiven_ Dembe; there was no need for a breach—so he draws it around him the way he would his overcoat, lets it insulate him while Elizabeth babbles. She’s too caught up in the glow of her imagined discovery to notice his lack of response, but he’ll see to it that she catches the chill he’s feeling before the night is out.

“Take a look at the door,” he breaks in.

“I know I said I wasn’t—” she starts, and Christ, she can’t keep her mind off herself for a second, can she?

“You see Chuck?” he asks, letting a little of his condescension bleed through.

“Yeah.”

“You know who you don’t see? Dembe. You know why? Because your hunt for the truth—my truth, by the way, not yours—cost me my relationship with him.”

That shakes her, but only for a second. “It’s gonna be okay,” she insists, like the child they’ve always let her be. “I know it will. Especially because you’ve got nothing to disagree about anymore.” She’s the worst of her mother in that moment, wrapped in her selfish certainty, and she’s never sickened him more.

He listens with half an ear to the rest. Ilya Kozlov, sure. He can be Ilya Kozlov. He can pretend not to be bothered by the way Elizabeth focuses on his supposed interest in getting at Reddington’s money, too. It’s clear he’ll need to have a talk with Dom, the meddling old bastard, but that can wait.

When she winds down, he orders her the goose. It really is delicious, and he doubts she’s eaten in a while. Her twitchy pallor tells him she’s been running solely on adrenaline.

She doesn’t have anything resembling a plan, of course. Between mouthfuls, she admits sheepishly that she doesn’t even have a place to stay, which is how he ends up bundling her into the back of the car and taking her to his hotel, even though he’d like nothing more than to be alone. He feels horribly diminished with Dembe gone, as though he’s missing a limb, or a lung, and he doesn’t want anyone watching while he tries to figure out if he can live that way.

He heads for the bar the minute they’re through the door of the penthouse. “Nightcap?”

“No, thank you.”

“There are bedrooms,” he says, gesturing, “through there, when you’re ready. Pick one.”

“I appreciate it. But I’m not tired yet. Can we talk for a while?”

“I am.”

“Please, Ilya?” she wheedles, mangling the name again. “No interrogations, I promise. I just want to know some of what you’re thinking.”

He sighs. “Why don’t we go out on the terrace?”

 

“Wow,” Elizabeth breathes reverently when they do, stepping around him to get a better look at the lights of Victoria Harbour far below. “What a beautiful view.”

“Mm,” he agrees. “Lovely and bright and vacant. Rather like you.”

She turns. “Pardon?”

“There were two people left alive whom I loved,” he tells her. “Dembe, and you. Nearly everything I did for twenty years, I did to keep you safe, to give you a chance to grow. I killed hundreds of people, compromised my soul in ways that . . . and told myself it was worth it, because you were something good. But you turned out to be poison fruit, didn’t you? You lied and manipulated and stole.”

“What—” She sounds like she can’t quite get enough air. He knows the feeling. “What did I steal?”

“Kate. Dembe. People I trusted with my life, with _more_ than my life. And you turned them against me.”

 _Where are you going?_ he remembers asking, as if he were a child and not a sixty-year-old man, and has to shut his eyes against the threat of sudden tears. He’s so tired of being left.

“Dembe’s not gone, Ilya. He can’t be. He’s—”

“Do you have any idea how much you take out of me? Do you care? Of course you don’t. As long as you’re comfortable, it doesn’t matter what other people suffer.”

“I know you’ve sacrificed for me, and I’m grateful—”

“Fuck your gratitude,” he says, and watches her flinch at the unaccustomed vulgarity. “I’ve sheltered you, Elizabeth. Comforted you, indulged you. God help me, I’ve loved you.  And all you’ve done, over and over again, is slide your knives between my ribs. I’ve never been quite stupid enough to really believe you’d love me back, but I thought you _might_ learn to show a little consideration. A little warmth.”

“I didn’t understand,” she whispers. “For a long time, it didn’t make any sense. You showed up with your stories and your gifts and your—your insinuations, and I . . . How could I trust that you weren’t just using me? That this, us, meant something real? You wouldn’t even tell me your name. So if I used you a little too . . .” She waves a hand, dismissing her own transgressions. “But that doesn’t matter anymore,” she says, low and intent again, like she’d been in the restaurant. “Because now I finally do understand.  And I know I’ve hurt you, but I do love you. I do.”

He’s grateful for the steadying weight of the tumbler in his hand. It helps him focus through the sudden, nauseating swirl of disgust.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he tells her, clear and cold. “I said I _have_ loved you. I _did_ love you. Not that I do.”

She makes a tiny, devastated sound.

“We’re past that,” he continues. “And I have no use for whatever obscenity a vicious little narcissist like you calls love. You once told me I was a monster, do you remember? Well, you’re just as much of one as I am, my dear. This, us?” he asks, mimicking her. “It’s been nothing but a waste.”

“Il—”

“Oh, and that name? A fairy tale Dom told to shut you up. Cry to him if you need to cry to someone. I’m sure you told him within five minutes of meeting him again that he was the only family you had, didn’t you? When for years, I was right in front of you. I was right here.”

She’s crying openly now, and he’s glad, he’s sick, wants to hurt her, wants to soothe her.

“You’ve had your dinner,” he says, too far into this to turn back, and hasn’t that always been the way. “We’ve had our little goodnight chat. Now go to sleep, Elizabeth. Checkout is at two; feel free to stay until then, and order whatever you like for breakfast. I won’t be here when you wake up.”

“No,” she says, choked. “I’ll go. I’ll sleep at the airport. Send your fucking cases to Aram if you want to. I won’t bother you again.”

She turns without grace and stumbles back through the suite. He hears her sob. Hears the door slam. Lets out a breath that's close to a sob of his own.

The silence he's left with is—less welcome than he imagined it would be. He drains the rest of his scotch in one swallow, sets the tumbler down, and turns to look out over the water. “Прости меня, дорогая,” he murmurs, unsure whom he's addressing. His long-dead wife, who would surely not be pleased with him if she could see him now? Vanished Katarina? Elizabeth herself? So many women in his life have wounded, and been wounded by, him. And he’s beyond tired now, chilled and abandoned, getting older, getting old. The ledge on the terrace, it occurs to him after a moment, isn’t very high. It would be easy enough to step over. In the dark, the drop doesn’t seem long at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Red says to Dom at the end of the ep that he knows "the broad strokes" of "who [he is]" but that the details need filling in, which makes it pretty clear "Ilya Koslov" is another invention and the impostor thing will be ongoing in S7. I'm getting pretty tired of that drama, and I imagined Red might be too.
> 
> I haven't been able to speak or even understand much Russian since before I went to kindergarten, so I had to rely on the internet for that last line of speech. Apologies to anyone who might be offended by the inaccuracies of online translation mechanisms.


End file.
